Tarō

Before there were Japanese baby name books, there were folk tales, and Taro was already there: Momotaro the Peach Boy, Urashima Taro the fisherman who visits a palace beneath the sea. The name for the firstborn son, written with characters meaning big and son, older than most Japanese institutions still standing. In that sense Taro is not a name someone chooses so much as a name Japan chose for a type, the archetypal eldest, the one responsible for what comes next.

In modern Japan it has softened from ubiquity into something warmer — used colloquially the way English speakers reach for John Doe, familiar enough to be anonymous and specific enough to be beloved. For parents outside Japan, Taro arrives with exactly the right weight: folkloric, honest, easy in the mouth, two long syllables flowing with uncomplicated confidence, the final o held open like a door. It pairs naturally with surnames that need something grounded and unhurried at the front. A name like a well-worn path that has been walked by people worth following.